Tom Herman, the new Texas Longhorn football coach, has brought changes and excitement to a program desperate for success. But Coach Herman's many positive changes have been vastly outweighed by one enormous, avoidable travesty: hiring former Baylor assistant director of football operations Casey Horny.

Coach Horny was a key player in the most outrageous scandal in the history of the NCAA, the rape scandal at Baylor football. Members of the Baylor Board of Regents told The Wall Street Journal that between 2011 and 2015, at least 17 women had accused 19 Baylor football players of rape. Regents also revealed to the Journal that at least four instances of gang rape had been reported.

Full details are not available because there has never been any investigation by the NCAA, the Big 12 conference or the Waco police. Baylor regents hired a law firm to do an internal review but they wrote no report. In early March 2017, the Texas Rangers finally launched a limited investigation, which is still pending. More details are coming from lawsuits filed by some women accusing football players of rape.

This month another lawsuit was filed, this time by a former Baylor volleyball player. The suit alleges she was gang raped and told her coach, who in turn reported the incident to the football staff and the university. The suit claims that even with the help of her varsity coach, the victim got no help from Baylor.

Court papers from Baylor regents allege that at least 52 sexual assaults were committed by no fewer than than 31 Baylor football players between 2011 and 2014. The regents also alleged that "The football program was a black hole into which reports of misconduct such as drug use, physical assault, domestic violence, brandishing of guns, indecent exposure, and academic fraud disappeared."

Baylor's scandal even exceeds the horrible events at Penn State. With Jerry Sandusky, only one individual was committing sexual assaults. At Baylor, the allegation is that dozens of people were raping scores of victims.

The situation is so bad that leading Baylor alumni have publicly demanded reform. Some people are asking if Baylor should be ejected from the Big 12.

With no investigation or report, we don't know what role, if any, Casey Horny played in this horrible nightmare. He worked for nine years at Baylor as director of football operations. That is, his duties were entirely off-field.

Could Horny have done his job without knowing about the 52 alleged sexual assaults by football players? Could he have done his off-field job without hearing about these allegations from those who say they contacted the football program about them?

After Coach Art Briles was fired, he publicly threw his staff under the bus, saying, "The head coach is the last to know." Is Briles pointing the finger at someone else? If so, who?

Horny hasn't made public statements about the sexual assault scandal, so we don't know if he understands the gravity of these crimes. He has publicly defended Briles.

Other key members of Briles' former Baylor staff have landed in other football programs around the country, bringing with them similar questions. Why would the University of Texas, at a time when the school is working hard to get a full understanding of rape on campus, take the risk of hiring a football coach who had been a key part of a program mired in a sexual assault scandal?

They say "athletics are the front porch of a university." To me that means, for better or worse, the football team represents all of UT. That opportunity is a privilege, for players and coaches. No one has a right to be a football coach. As the Texas Rangers conclude their investigation and the lawsuits go to trial, what will it say about UT and our values when the full details of the Baylor scandal reach the light of day? If Herman truly is a CEO-type coach, as people claim, then he should already understand why you can't hire your old friend of 18 years under these circumstances.

There is no justification of any kind for Herman and athletic director Mike Perrin bringing this man to UT. And there is no reason for Casey Horny to stay on our campus one more day. UT let Charlie Strong go for the good of the program. For the good of the program, and the good of the entire university, they should immediately do the same with Casey Horny.

John Greytok is an attorney in Austin, a Life Member of the Texas Exes and a UT football season ticket holder. Email: john@johngreytok.com